A Cosmic Rose for Your Spacey Valentine

By Nancy Atkinson - February 12, 2013 at 8:35 PM UTC | Extragalactic
sh2-174-1000.jpg

We space-nerds like to express our amorous feelings, just like the rest of the population (although admittedly some of need more help/prodding in this area than others). And so just in time for Valentine's Day comes this new image of a planetary nebula, which looks like a rose -- or even a tulip – to share with your very spacey valentine.

The name of this planetary nebula, however, is not so romantic: Sh2-174. We need some suggestions for a better name!

And the way this object was created is not so romantic, either, as planetary nebulae come about in violent events. Sh2-174 was created when a low-mass star blew off its outer layers at the end of its life. The core of the star remains and is called a white dwarf. Usually the white dwarf can be found very near the center of the planetary nebula. But in the case of Sh2-174 it is off to the right. (It is the very blue star near the center of the blue gas). This asymmetry is due to the planetary nebula's interaction with the interstellar medium that surrounds it.

This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) Mosaic 1 camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. Travis Rector from the University of Alaska Anchorage made the observations for this image, taken through four different filters which are assigned colors that approximate what the human eye can see: B (blue), I (orange), Hydrogen-alpha (red) and Oxygen [OIII] (blue) filters. In this image, North is up, East is to the left.

Source:

NOAO

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com